The Origins Of Some Christmas Traditions
Christmas season is full of Christmas traditions which have been around for several decades, even centuries. These Christmas traditions often start out as something based on religion or culture and eventually evolved into something else with the progress of civilization.
Popular Christmas Traditions
One of the most popular and enduring of Christmas traditions is the sending of greeting cards to family and friends during the season. This tradition originated from Great Britain during the time when the initial postal services began there. Cards were often sent during the holiday season and they depicted religious images of the Nativity scene or that of the Holy Family.
Other Christmas traditions are the belief in Santa Claus and Christmas stockings. Santa Claus is the human representation of the holiday season. He is believed to travel the world on Christmas Eve and give every good child a present. He is often shown as a rotund old man dressed in red clothes, carrying a sack full of presents. He is also believed to go down chimneys and ride in a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer.
Christmas stockings also came to pass because of St. Nicholas, the real life Santa Claus. He was a shy man who wished to share his good fortune with people. He did not want the people to know that he was the one giving them money so he would climb up their roofs and drops a bag of money down their chimney. One such bag of money supposedly dropped into a stocking that a child had hung in the chimney to dry. Thus the tradition of hanging stockings came to be.
Other Christmas traditions are Christmas trees and mistletoe. Christmas traditions concerning the Christmas trees began during the sixteenth century in Germany where tress, specifically fir trees, were decorated with fruits, flowers, candles and colored paper. As with other Christmas traditions, this one went around the world when people from Germany went to other countries and celebrated Christmas there. It is said that Prince Albert of Germany who married Queen Victoria of England brought to Great Britain the practice of decorating Christmas trees.
The mistletoe is among the most celebrated of all Christmas traditions because it gives lovers a chance to express their love and affection when they are caught under it. Traditionally, people caught under mistletoe should kiss. This tradition could have originated from the Scandinavians who associated their goddess of love with the mistletoe.
These Christmas traditions are but a few of the ones that are currently being practiced worldwide. These Christmas traditions and many others bring love and bonding throughout all the families and people who celebrate the season.
